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Tuesday, 25 April 2017

Meanwhile on the Korean Peninsula

Apologies in advance for the length (nearly 4000 words) but its not a topic that can be condensed without losing the important info or its context.

Also apologies for the some of the links or lack thereof as this could have been the most link heavy post I had ever written but I culled a lot due to the sheer number. If your interested I encourage you to go out and read up on this yourself.

In the media the
discussion has ranged from invasions, targeted strikes, regime change, further
sanctions to speculative, and often salacious, articles about the current ruler
of North Korea, the baby faced Kim Jong Un, and his family but almost all of
this discussion boils down to the geo-political version of shouting “wont someone think of the children!”

And I am posting
this on ANZAC day because if there is any day where it’s appropriate to honor
those who fought and died in war but to also remember exactly what they fought
and died for then this is the day.

But don’t be
mistaken that this post is going to stupidly glorify war or make some limp
argument for peace; I will be just setting out my thoughts on the situation and
let you make up your own mind.

So like my previous
geo-political post on the South China Sea I am going to try and unpack the
issues and lay out the facts so that instead of everyone chanting “North Korea
Bad! USA Good! War, War, War!” in unison we can discuss this with a little more
balance and perspective.

And the best place
to start is with the history of the region itself, North East Asia, because
trying to focus on the situation today without understanding how we got to the
Korean peninsula being one big armed camp leaves vital pieces out of the
puzzle.

Some History

The two Korea's we
have today were once one Korea (a Korea with a long and proud history and
distinct language and culture – despite what the POTUS says) and in the late
19th century Korea, and the surrounding region of Manchuria, was invaded,
occupied and annexed by Imperial Japan (just like Russia has done in the
Ukraine and Crimea today).

The Japanese
responded to the threat of modernity by deciding to go whole hog on
westernization (including military systems and weapons) and rapidly changed the
face of Japanese society by industrializing and adopting many western ideas and
practices (like a parliament, a constitution, factories, electricity and some
western cultural practices).

But it did not stop
there as Japan decided to get into the colonial game as well (just like Europe
and the US was doing around the world) and after Japan claimed Korea and
Manchuria, by defeating Russia in the Russo/Japanese war of 1905 (the first
time a western power was defeated by an Asian power), Japan then invaded China
and by the 1930s had entered what the Japanese referred to as the Kurai Tanima or Dark Valley of militarism.

So with Japan
occupying large parts of Asia, fighting in China and aggressively expanding its
naval capacity the US took steps to stop it (trade sanctions etc) which lead to
the Pacific War and split of Korea into two states between the US and the
Russians (in much the same way that Germany was split by the occupying powers)
when Japan was eventually defeated in 1945*.

Two Koreas One War

This artificial
split of one nation into two was never going to go down well and in 1950, after
five uneasy years North Korea (backed by the Russians) invaded the South and
kicked off the Korean War (1950-1953).

The war was the
first major conflict of the post World War Two era and the real large scale
conventional war, as the US and Russia used the North and South as proxies to
fight it out.

But there is more
to this conflict than just the US and Russia as major players. In 1950, with
the North Koreans almost beaten and the US close to Chinese border, China
intervened on the side of the North and drove the US back, leading to two more
years of bitter fighting before the armistice in 1953.

The reason the
Chinese got involved has more than one factor but in short came down to being
very unhappy about having US military forces right on its border which (if you
know your Chinese history) had a lot to do with just having thrown off 100
years of European domination (including the Opium Wars where the British acted
as the world’s first drug cartel by flooding China with Cheap opium), then
battling the Japanese occupiers and finally ending its protracted civil war
(caused in part by Western powers weakening an already fragile Chinese state)
which had raged until 1949.

So from 1950 to
1953 the Korean War seesawed back and forth and ended in stalemate, no official
peace treaty, no real peace, the world most heavily militarized border and two well-armed
nations (supported by their Cold War backers) who hated each other and were now
diametrically opposed to each other’s way of life (Communism vrs Capitalism).

And unlike that
other famous Cold War border, between East and West Germany, this one was not
always that cold, in fact it was often very hot with continual flare ups,
shootings, shelling and occasional incursions, by the North, into the South
(North Korean Death Commandos, midget submarines etc) just to keep things on
edge.

The Korean War had
devastated both Korea's (but specially the North which had been subjected to a
US carpet bombing campaign that killed up to 20% of the population) and made
China and the US bitter enemies, until Nixon started the thaw in relations in
1972. It also proved that the US high tech military machine could be stopped,
if not beaten (it took the North Vietnamese to do that in the Vietnam War) and
intensified Cold War hostility to the levels we all know and love (proxy wars,
spies, defectors, espionage galore, spy planes and spy ships, military
build-ups, client states, “we start bombing in five minutes” etc).

And that state of
affairs continued after the rest of the Cold War ended, when the Soviet Union
collapsed and the Berlin Wall came down (bringing about the reunification of
the two Germany's back into one) and continues to this day which is why the
situation on the Korean peninsula remains so tense.

What did change in
the last 50 years is that North Korea stopped being a client of the Russians
and became a client state of China; South Korea was run by a military junta
from the early 1960s to the mid-1980s** (that’s right the southern half) before
finally converting to an east Asian style democracy. It’s also worth noting North
Korea was economically and materially better off for the first 25 years
following the end of the war before the South finally caught up and then
surpassed it.

Then in the mid-90s
North Korea nearly collapsed during a series of famines where, it has been
estimated, that up to two million people starved to death and the survivors had
to resort to measures like eating grass, bark and sometimes even each other and
from which it has never really recovered (malnourishment and stunted growth of
the North Koreans) and remains dependent on food aid to this very day.

Meanwhile South
Korea thrived during the 1980s and 90s and emerged as one of the Tiger
economies of Asia during the 2000s and now enjoys a high standards of living
and food for all.

And while a lot is
made of North Korea's nuclear weapons program few people know that it was begun
in response to the US placing nuclear weapons in South Korea as a means of
bolstering its troops stationed there as well as threats by the US to use them
if the North ever invaded the South.

Meanwhile both
states developed large military forces (with the North getting theirs from the
Soviets and later the Chinese and the South primarily from the US) and which,
to this day, both still retain military conscription which gives you an idea of
exactly how serious both sides are about their current neighbor across the
DMZ.

And while there
have been attempts to patch things up with the Sunshine Policy (10 years of
slightly less strained relations from 1998 to 2008) and cross border visits for
separated families there is just too much history between them to really fix
things and the positions too intractable to really make any progress.

People in power

Then there are the
personalities and if there is anything which makes the whole North Korea/South
Korea thing worse it’s the personalities.

In the North it’s
been the dynastic family of the Kim’s**** with the current iteration of Kim
Jong Un who is the grandson of the original North Korean crazy man Kim Jong Il
and son of Kim Jong Il (he of Team America fame). All of the absolute dictators
with the power of life and death over the citizenry, who have been
indoctrinated to treat them like gods who can do no wrong and who protect the
country from Imperialist America.

But the South has
had its share of such behavior also, from the first leader of South Korea (the
Authoritarian Syngman Rhee), to “President Park” (he of military junta fame)
and the father of the recent President Park who was impeached and convicted for
corruption as well as letting her astronomer run the country (just like Nancy
Regan did in the 1980s for the US) as well as other strongman leaders.

With such
leadership, and the US, Russia and China hovering in the background, it’s easy
to see why things might have remained tense on the peninsula for the last 65
years.

So let’s recap the
current history and situation before going onto the possible futures of the
region.

Divided nation,
superpower backers, military conflict and Cold War escalation, threats from
both sides, devastating war, authoritarian governments, dictatorial leaders,
heavily armed (and mined) border region, history of occupation as well as proud
history of independence (check out this clip), nuclear weapons (or the threat
thereof) and just a dash of crazy.

All of these
factors is what has created the situation we have today and while North Korea
is definitely the worse of the two now it has not always been so and as we now
look at future options it pays to keep that in mind*5.

Media Histrionics

But first a brief
word about the media coverage.

The current view of
the media on the situation shows that either they don’t know the history of the
region and situation, or more likely, are happy playing the panic card by
trying to appear responsible journalists but instead write articles like this which just make the worry worse by feeding a stream of manipulative factoids
(ala most mainstream US journalism on the issue) and say one thing on the
surface but have another (more panicky message) underneath.

Which is why most
coverage and commentary comes off like the previously mentioned “concern for
the children” comment which is using one small part of the situation as
justification for a whole lot more.

The net result is a
rather sleazy replay of the lead up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq with lots of
diagrams of nuclear weapons, cruise missiles, damage tables and all the
“technical” jargon one can handle before vomiting up the barium meal.

Risk and reward?

But North Korea is
not Iraq and an invasion or any other form of military measure comes with an incredible
range of risks.

But to fully
understand those risks we have to understand the rationality or security stance
of the players in the game and each has a different stance than the others.

North Korea, is an
international pariah state, it’s also a dictatorship with a small ruling elite
attached. For such an nation, leader and elite, maintaining its security (ie
the security of the ruler and the elite) is paramount and given the fact that
it still remembers what happened to it in the Korean War, as well as previous
US threats of retaliation, it’s understandable that such a state would seek to
build and maintain the ultimate deterrent (nuclear weapons).

But nuclear weapons
only work as a deterrent if its backed by a credible threat (ie that of their use)
but paradoxically that threat is useless if the North were ever to use them.

Why? Because if
they did they know they would be starting a conflict they could not and would
not win and that such use would invite their total and utter destruction as a response.

Therefore using
nuclear weapons as a form of security only works if you are still in power and
if you are pile of radioactive ash or have been forcefully invaded, deposed,
tried and hung by the rest of the planet in response to your using nuclear weapons,
then they have not done their job.

North Korea wants
to be seen as a mad dog threat, this has been its position for the past 30
years or so and it remains that today. The threat of them having nukes and
being just “craaaaazy” enough to use them means they can (and have in the past)
wrought concessions out of the South Korea, The US and China.

Kim and Co want to
maintain their lives and their lifestyles (because he and North Korean elite
live very very well while the rest of the North lives in near starvation and
poverty (as well as death camps, secret police knocking on your door in the
middle of the night and all that fun police state stuff) and as such they are
fully rational about what they are doing and why they do it.

What would not be
rational would be them just handing over power and giving up their easy lives
and as such they seek to protect that.

Imagine if Bill
“why aren’t you John key” English and Co suddenly decided that they were
socialists after all and were going to reverse all of their policies which were
taking NZ down the dark road we are currently going as well as give up their
cushy jobs in parliament and have to go out and do some real work and actually
not just live off the rest of us.

You can imagine
that situation all you like but it won’t happen because inside the framework of
the power relations and situation that Bill and Co exist it would not be
“rational” and in their minds simply not an option.

This is the same as
how North Korea thinks. If they push the button and try and start the big one
by lobbing a nuclear missile on anyone they will be gone and they know it BUT
if they wave the missile around and keep up their aggressive stance they get
things for their bad behavior. It’s not a nice way to behave but its works and
in the context of the situation has been very profitable.

The Chinese Puzzle

Then there is
China. If it was just North Korea they would probably have collapsed by now but
China has propped them up and supported them for 50 plus years now, why?

Again go back to
the security stance of the Chinese. Not fond of being invaded or foreign
aggression, not happy with having the US military camped out on its borders (or
its anti-missile missiles stationed in South Korea) and as such keeping North
Korea as both a buffer state as well as a piece on the geo-political board is
preferable to having the two Korea's become one and then being stuck with a US
allied state right on its border (because if the two were ever to merge its
hard to imagine anyone would be choosing the “lets live like the North”
option).

And as in my South
China Sea post the attempts by the US at containing a rising China require
China to secure its position and North Korea is at that than a unified Korea.

Of course China has
its limits and the behavior of the North Korea's has been both vexing and not
always in line with China’s goals at times but again when viewed their the
Chinese security lens it makes sense.

The one caveat here is that even China has its limits and if North Korea outlived its usefulness or pushed things too far then I do expect the Chinese to take action but the question is what action and what effect would it have. At the end of the day China has the most sway with the north and if any nation can get North Korea to ease off with its belligerent actions then it is China.

Price of reunification for the South

For the South
Koreans, now a prosperous global economy a unified Korea looks good on paper
but who is going to pay for all that modernization for the crappy third world
derelict just across the border? What about all those economic refugees that
would come flooding across looking for better jobs and lives? Who would pay for
all of that? How would the South deal with it?

And given now that
the two Korea's are now somewhat distinct (with even their language becoming
different in dialect) could these two even reintegrate without further conflict
and issue?

Another Quagmire for the US

Then there is the
US of A. Ol Sherrif Donald and his military sure would like to take out the
North but at what cost?

The odds of an
invasion going any better than Iraq did is zero and probably worse. To be sure
the US would definitely succeed in invading North Korea and probably even
deposing Kim and the regime but, like Iraq, it’s winning the peace after that
is the issue.

Then there is the
fact that South Korea would very likely suffer some collateral damage not to
mention god knows what kind of violent aftermath (or global economic
dislocation) if the US was to go by the Iraq playbook (which by the way was an
actual copy of the playbook from the invasion and occupation of Germany in
1945) and the US would certainly cop the blame.

Finally let’s not
forget that while wars are fabulous for sagging presidential (or prime
ministerial popularity) the US is still getting over the invasion and
occupation of both Iraq and Afghanistan and Donald Trump may be crazy but the
pentagon is not (it’s just evil, but rational).

Recently the US has
been trying to get China to let it go in or at least for China to do the dirty
work for the US but given the current climate between the two it’s hard to
imagine that China is going to want a fractured North Korea or all those North
Koreans pouring over its border (it has issues with North Koreans in China at
the moment).

Also think about
Pakistan (the US never wanted them to have nukes) and since they developed them
the US has been forced to live with the fact that they do and that they have a
belligerent relationship with India (a close second to the Korean peninsula
when it comes to armed borders, hostilities and long running history of
rancor) because the cost of doing anything to actually remove them would have
higher costs than letting them keep them.

The costs of the US
doing something to remove North Korea's nuclear capability are more than likely
just as high if not higher than letting them keep them.

And this, in a
nutshell, is the dynamic of the international security situation for two Korea's
and their friends and while it’s easy to call for some sort of military action
(if you like showing your ignorance) it’s akin to throwing a lighted match onto
a bonfire (made with guns, explosives and all the hate you can imagine). In a
word it would be the ultimate blowback.

Maybe, Maybe Not

But that’s not to
say that someone won’t do something stupid or make a mistake but this is a high
stakes game and as anyone who has ever played no limit poker can tell you an all in call has just as much risk as reward when you can’t see all the cards
and as I have noted there is a rational thread connecting all the players and their actions.

Which is why calls
for an invasion, or a targeted strike or anything else (such as a new leader*6)
looks good on paper but when weighed up with all the facts and history a
different picture emerges and it is one where barring a freak move we won’t
have to worry about North Korean nuclear missiles raining down on us any time
soon.

And on ANZAC day
that’s a comforting thought because my own military history, family and
background means that while I retain a lifelong fascination and interest in the
study of all things war and military related I don’t have any wish to go off
and die in a pointless conflict for any empire, king or country.

I pay my respects
to those who fought and fell every year but I never have and never will support
the wars they fought or the arguments that saw them go. Just wars are few and
far between and the First World War was not one of them and nor would a further
war on the Korean peninsula.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.At the going down of the sun and in the morning,We will remember them.

*-This is obviously
a gross simplification but unless someone really wants my “abridged” history of
the Pacific War that is all your getting in this post.

**-And given that
the first “democratically elected” president was a member of the previous
military junta real democracy did not emerge until the early 90s.

***-Complete with
dinner table assassinations of one junta leader in 1979

****-I would add a
joke about she of the Kardashian fame but one family of monstrosities is enough
for this post.

*5-Also, again,
this is the abridged version of the history and the events of the region as I
have omitted a range of people, events and situations for the sake of space.

*6-Which is why the
North Koreans killed Kim Jong Un’s half-brother recently, so that there would
be no other legitimate heirs to the throne.

NOTE: How do I know all this stuff? Studying Asian politics as an undergrad, living in and across Asia for 10 years, getting paid to watch North Korea (plus other countries) and doing counter proliferation while working at INZ, a Masters in Strat Studies and a lifelong interest in Asia and Asian cultures, that's how.

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Itsa me!

Political pyromaniac; born again democrat; satirical connotator; fascist anarchist; relaxed conservative; focused liberal; consumer of truth, witch-hunter general of lies and putter of the praxis into perfect!